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Friday, April 23, 2010

Archetypal Processes IX: Uranus – CREDO CVI

The Precession of the Equinoxes is very complicated to explain. Basically, the 12 constellations of the sidereal Zodiac, the great ellipse of the visible stars discovered by Hipparchus in the second century BC, occupy varying arcs of space. The Point of the Vernal Equinox is determined by the moment the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, the projection of the Earth’s equatorial plane onto the celestial sphere of the Zodiac. At that instant, the Sun, obviously, is in the Zodiacal plane, and if you draw a line like a clock hand from the Earth through the Sun it will intersect the Zodiac at the Point of the Vernal Equinox. However, this Point is not fixed; due to the Precession of the Equinoxes, it transits backward through the constellations of the Zodiac at the rate of 1 degree every 72 years. This backward movement, indicated by the word precession, is caused because the pole of the Earth, the axis of rotation, does not stay in a fixed orientation, but moves slowly in a circle, taking about 26,000 years, Plato’s Great Year, to complete the circle. At the beginning of the Age of Aries, which was arbitrarily set by Hipparchus and has created much confusion, the Point of the Vernal Equinox was at 0 deg. of the constellation Aries, but due to the Precession of the Equinoxes it currently has almost finished moving through Pisces and is approaching Aquarius. So the “dawning” effect comes as it crosses the interface and approaches the first star in Aquarius, rumored to be in 2012! Phew!

Thus, in a way, the discovery of Uranus could mark the real dawning of the “New Age” of Aquarius, the Age of the Common Man. This happened in the year 1781, and a German musician called Wilhelm Herschel was playing the oboe in an orchestra in Bath, England. He was an amateur astronomer who built his own telescope. One night, he thought he might have discovered a new planet, and he must have exclaimed “Ach, Du lieber!” He communicated this to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, and they checked it out and must have exclaimed, “By gum, he’s right!” There was no religious conflict whatever, just enlightened science.

It would seem, however, that we don’t discover new planets until the collective consciousness of mankind is ready to deal with its process. Everything about Uranus is contrary, even its moons. Its slogan could be Why not? Its discovery coincided historically with not only the American and the French Revolutions but also the Industrial Revolution, the end results of which were not only to overthrow monarchies in favor of democracy but, in time, to free millions of women from hours and hours of housework and enable them to pursue their intellectual and artistic interests, something hitherto only the wealthy could afford! We should be grateful. Just think of the slogan of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! All are Aquarian concepts, and Uranus rules Aquarius. (Previously, it was ruled by Saturn, which was thought to rule both Capricorn and Aquarius.)

This period was the time of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, the founding of what was to become the United States of America and the republic of France. It should be noted however that the oldest modern democracy was that of Iceland in 930, with its Althing or representative governing body, followed by Switzerland on August 1, in 1291. The ancient Greeks, of course, had the idea first, only to be subsumed by Alexander the Great’s empire.

Herschel wanted to name the new planet after King George the Third, but then it was suggested that the planet be called Herschel. However, it seems, he demurred. Somehow, the sequence of Roman gods ending in Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel didn’t seem fitting! To this day, though, in India, the name Herschel is mentioned. Oddly, the glyph for the planet resembles both an H and the early television antennas, and television broadcasts are ruled by Uranus! The images, though, are ruled by Neptune.

Uranus soon became the ruler of the sign Aquarius, the symbol for which is the double row of waves, which suddenly makes sense as invisible waves of energy. Electricity, telegraph, telephone, radio, today’s texting, and all such communication are ruled by Uranus, as the higher octave of Mercury. Some astrologers feel that Prometheus would have been a better choice of name, because the nature of the Greek god Ouranos was of the older generation of gods. He was the sky god, whose wife was Gaea, the earth goddess. Prometheus was the god who brought fire to mankind.

Uranus has a positive, yang, nature. It rules the occult. The next planet out is Neptune, which has a receptive, yin, nature. It rules mysticism.Parents of children in whose charts Uranus is prominent should be aware of this. I myself have Aquarius rising and Uranus (fortunately intercepted in the first house, which internalizes its process), so, as a child, I would instinctively do the opposite of what I was told to do! My mother caught on, and got around this by daring me to do things. “Of course, you couldn’t pack your suitcase in time for us to leave . . .” I showed her! When she wanted me to read a book, she would hide it, and I would find it myself, and so forth. I drove my beloved husband Walter nuts trying to follow his directions in backing a car into a tight space. On the other hand, Uranus rules intuition and may account for a few insights. Needless to say, it rules astrology.

Everything going on in the world today points to Uranus: space exploration, technology, Facebook, Twitter, texting, sex without emotional involvement, globalization. The new direction seems to be that everybody is going to discover they are everybody! As the Age of Aquarius looms, we need to heed what Mother Theresa put in a nutshell. She said: I believe in person to person and that God is in everyone.

The opposite sign to Aquarius is Leo. Aquarius is an air sign, transpersonal, intellectual, unemotional, so the fire sign Leo is the balance offered by ‘person to person’ and the importance of Love! I am amused when I put money in the tollbooth and the green light flashes Thank You! or when people, such as myself, sign off with love on a computer, though I mean it! Social Security checks can arrive in an envelope but there is no love in it. All this is Aquarian. This is the Shadow of the coming Age: the lack of Love. Our architecture demonstrates it. Windows in skyscrapers don’t open, air conditioners can then circulate disease, etc. We cheat nature with plastic but are conquering outer space. Children are glued to texting rather than meeting and socializing.

Years ago I had an Aquarian friend who was writing a book on the seven mysteries of life but forgot to water his horse, and it died of thirst!The potential healing, I trust, lies in the squaring earth sign of Taurus. The Green Movement, with its wind propellers for energy, the solar roofs, and attempts at organic rather processed foods, hopefully also will generate a greater reverence for nature, life, and love. Not a return as such but another spiraling into the appreciation of meaning in life. I cannot do better than to again recommend the book by the atomic physicist Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God, which in exploring the subatomic world (Uranus/Aquarius) ends up, without a word of preaching, in proving the undeniable existence (Sun/Leo) of Spirit.